The curtain fell

With Axel and the others returning to Oran Island one after another, the great battle finally drew to a close.

Although its ending had been somewhat abrupt, and things had not gone entirely according to plan.

Still, three Admiral-level fighters had died in this battle. What more could anyone want?

The best course was to end the fighting early, then focus on building up their territory and strengthening himself and his subordinates as quickly as possible. Otherwise, he really would never feel safe.

Lind dreaded the possibility that the World Government might copy Rocks's decapitation tactics someday, leaving him to wake up surrounded by several Admiral-level fighters intent on taking his life.

But lying low was one thing. He still had to claim the fruits of his victory in good time.

No matter how anyone looked at it, Lind had won this war and gained control of the Orlan Sea.

Previously, Axel and the others had only cleared the pirates out of these waters. They still needed to approach all the other factions, large and small, including the various families and gangs, before bringing the Orlan Sea fully under their rule.

After a grand banquet, Lind's officers split into small teams the next day and headed out in multiple directions to take over the islands and raise Rocks's and Lind's flags.

Finally, according to each team's strength, they would spread out and garrison important islands to guard against raids by roaming pirates.

Compared with their earlier efforts to clear the pirates out of the Orlan Sea, this task was even more troublesome and time-consuming.

The Orlan Sea covered almost a third of the first stretch of the New World. Of the rest, a third belonged to Shiki and a third to the Navy.

Occasionally, an island was occupied by some major pirate, but those were few enough to be negligible.

After taking control of the Orlan Sea, Lind now held seventeen large islands of over ten thousand square kilometers, fifty medium-sized islands of over one thousand square kilometers, hundreds of small islands of over one hundred square kilometers, and countless tiny islands and reefs.

Across these waters were more than twenty kingdoms of various sizes, along with countless independent cities, towns, and villages, with a total population of thirty million.

Compared with the depths of the New World, its first stretch was indeed many times more prosperous.

As long as Lind could fully consolidate the Orlan Sea's resources, he would have the foundation for an empire and the confidence to face anything.

The only difficulty was how to consolidate those resources. The Orlan Sea was simply too fragmented, and its factions were far too complicated.

The ordinary cities and towns were easy enough to handle, but the kingdoms were decidedly more troublesome.

Unlike other pirates, Lind did not want to handle things crudely.

Even though he was already a pirate, he still preferred to prosper peacefully. He did not want to slaughter innocents, nor did he want that kind of reputation.

As his strength and standing changed, Lind's ambitions continued to change as well. Overthrowing the World Government aside, he certainly had thoughts of building a vast empire.

And that required popular support. Lind needed a suitable pretext to deal with those kingdoms.

He needed to act in accordance with the people's wishes, but he could not start using the revolutionary communist methods of his previous life just yet. He did not want to draw the World Government's hostility so early.

So he could only take things slowly. In fact, the methods Crocodile and Doflamingo had used in the story he knew from his previous life offered Lind an excellent template.

They simply needed some refinement and adjustments to local conditions. Crocodile and Doflamingo had been a little too crude, and strictly speaking, the kings they had overthrown had been good ones.

Among the twenty-odd kingdoms under Lind's control, some kings were good and others were bad. The bad ones were easy to deal with. He could simply adapt Crocodile's and Doflamingo's methods and put them to use.

He would first use public opinion to seize the moral high ground, then send troops to wipe out the royal family. Lind would feel no guilt over that.

As for the good kings, Lind still had some sense of morality. He could only try diplomacy before force, win them over through virtue, and use threats and incentives. Ideally, he could settle things through persuasion alone. If that failed, he would resort to other means.

Ultimately, strength was everything in this world. It was not as though Lind could not simply tie up the entire royal family and use his army to control the kingdom.

At worst, stabilizing the territory afterward would be more troublesome, but that was all it would be.

In any case, Lind had no intention of allowing kingdoms to remain within his future territory. Even paying protection money would not suffice. Every piece of territory had to be completely in his hands.

If members of the former royal families had terrible reputations, he would simply give them a quick death. Those with ordinary or decent reputations could remain as ordinary family factions under his rule.

If they wanted to join Lind, he would welcome them as well. Quite a few of the pirates currently serving him had previously belonged to family factions on Oran Island.

The anime could only show so much. Besides the pirates and the Navy, families of all sizes formed the main fabric of this world.

If Lind could establish himself securely, he and his officers would each form families of their own and put down roots in this world.

But it was still too early to talk about that. Ultimately, Lind's foundations were still far too shallow.

Even with the unfair advantage of the Mutation Fruit, he could not avoid the problem of having too few people to employ. For now, Lind could only collect protection money and leave each island's administration to its existing local powers.

Lind needed to slowly build his foundations, expand his influence, and extend his core territory.

Once Oran Elementary School, Oran Middle School, and Oran University were established in succession and spread everywhere, they would provide Lind with wave after wave of outstanding talent.

That would be the time for Lind to reclaim administrative control over the islands, or even establish an empire.

What he needed to do now was first improve his own strength and that of his subordinates.

Then he needed to develop various industries: farms, hotels, schools, hospitals, arms manufacturing, shipbuilding, trade, newspapers, and so on.

For now, he would focus on developing his organization, keeping it unburdened and steadily building its foundations. Once the time was ripe, he would turn it into an empire.

In his office, after completing the campaign to conquer the Orlan Sea, Lind finally had a rare opportunity to properly plan his future development.

"At this stage, it isn't suitable for me to run the entire Orlan Sea as my own domain."

"I don't have enough subordinates to administer a country right now."

"My core is still the Seventh Division. Right now, the Orlan Sea's greatest value to me is actually in providing enough talent, recruits, and money."

"I should use the Orlan Sea's resources to develop the Seventh Division, expand its personnel, and build up its industries. That's my true core and the source of my confidence."

"Now that we've conquered the Orlan Sea, we can begin another round of recruitment!" Lind murmured to himself.

Seven days later, everything was settled. Thanks to the efforts of Arx and the others, the Orlan Sea had become Lind's territory in its entirety, with his men stationed on every key island.

That evening, in the conference room.

"That's essentially the plan for this round of recruitment."

"To control the Orlan Sea and develop our various industries, we need to recruit at least fifty thousand people!"

"There's no need to rush this round of recruitment like we did last time. Pay attention to the quality of the recruits, and focus primarily on ordinary residents from the islands of the Orlan Sea."

"We're past the stage where we urgently needed to expand our fighting strength. You should all understand my temperament. Before, I had no choice, so aside from strength, my requirements were fairly low."

"I don't care about the pasts of the people we recruited before. But going forward, just dispose of anyone who has no humanity left. There's no need to give them a chance to reform."

By now, Lind's Seventh Division could be said to be completely different from ordinary pirates.

The most obvious difference was that they had humanity now. The early officers, including Axel, had been deeply influenced by Lind.

Over the past six months, they had gradually recovered the humanity they had lost, and they also understood Lind's temperament and habits.

Besides basic combat training, the Seventh Division's pirates also received ideological education.

They did not have to become good people, but they at least needed some humanity and could not slaughter indiscriminately for fun.

Their efforts had been highly effective, and the reform of the Seventh Division's pirates had been very successful. After all, those who could not be reformed had all been humanely put down.

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